In a turnabout from a campaign pledge, Republican senatorial candidate Rand Paul is getting help raising campaign money by GOP senators who voted for the 2008 Wall Street bailout.

According to an Associated Press report, Paul is holding a fundraiser Thursday night in Washington, D.C. Although Paul earlier had said he wouldn't seek money from any politician who voted for the $700 billion bailout, nine of the 12 senators listed on the event's host committee were bailout supporters.

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus held
a conference call with Ohio reporters Wednesday morning in response to
Tuesday comments by Democratic Vice President Joe Biden that the middle
class had been “buried” in the last four years.

“Obama and Biden have buried the middle class, and now they want to bury them some more,” Priebus told reporters.

“I mean, just imagine what Barack Obama would do. He
buried us economically in this country knowing that he would have to
face re-election. Just imagine what he would do with nothing but
daylight in front of him. Just imagine where this economy would go.”

Biden made his comments before an audience of about 1,000
in Charlotte on Tuesday. He said Republican presidential candidate Mitt
Romney’s tax cuts for millionaires would raise taxes for the middle
class.

“How can they justify raising classes on a middle class that has been buried the last four years?” Biden said.

Biden tried to clarify that he meant they had been buried by policies supported by Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan.

Republicans, however, jumped on the comment immediately,
with Romney tweeting, “the middle class has been buried the last 4
years, which is why we need a change in November.”

Priebus said despite polling showing Obama pulling ahead
of Romney in Ohio that the state would be very close. He said
Republicans have a better ground game and would “crush” Democrats.

“I think we’re going to crush the Democrats on the ground,” Priebus said.

“I just don’t think they’ve got a very good ground game. I’ve looked through it, I’ve seen it. It’s all smoke and mirrors.”

Priebus said if Romney were to lose Ohio, he was still optimistic about Wisconsin, Iowa, Colorado and Nevada.

“We’ve got it all on the table. Ohio is, of course,
extremely important. It’s nothing new, but I also see avenues to 270
(electoral votes) opening up for Mitt Romney in places that weren’t
there in ’08.”

Former GOP governor from Cincy now hailed as Mr. Conservation

When Bob Taft left the governor’s office in 2007, he was
seen as little more than a pompous bumbler. His two terms ended with a
conviction on a misdemeanor ethics crime for failing to report free golf
outings. He was the epitome of a country club Republican, a patrician
who played but didn’t pay, a rajah who blamed his aides for failing to
mention on ethics filings that his greens fees were gifts. Meanwhile, a
major scandal involving rare coin investment contracts with a
well-connected supporter from Toledo was roiling the state workers’
compensation insurance fund. That crime smelled like like pay to play in
the Taft Administration. And Taft’s poll numbers were deep in the pits —
he was rated the most unpopular governor in the United States. Many
Ohioans viewed Taft as a pol who was at his best only when the going was
good. Now he’s on the road to a comeback of sorts.The
Taft years are getting a second look, and out of it emerge a different
image, that of a governor with a sensible environmental policy. For
example, who noticed that he tried to stop Asian carp from invading our
waterways nearly a decade ago — an invasionthat has come true.

Next month, the state’s most important
environmental/conservation organization plans to give Taft its award for
lifetime achievement as a consistent backer of policies and programs
for clean air and water. So the governor who skipped his green fees is
being recognized as Mr. Green. The Ohio Environmental Councilsays it will bestow the honor Nov. 10 at its annual “Green Gala” in Columbus.

Taft is being seen in hindsight as the kind of R who
wasn’t afraid of standing up for the environment. That is a rarity in
today’s GOP, where Rush Limbaugh routinely denounces tree-huggers as
enviro-fascists, and the EPA is widely portrayed as a jobs-killing
hydra. Of course, few remember that Republican President Richard Nixon
created the EPA. Nor do they seem to recollect that Teddy Roosevelt —
when he wasn’t hunting elephants or elk — is the patriarch of the
national park system.

Taft gets credit for taking on his own party, which recently considered tapping water from the Great Lakes. He had supportedstrictlimits
on withdrawing water from Great Lakes feeder streams for industrial and
mining purposes — those streams replenished Lake Erie. Taft believed
the Great Lakes were resources that needed more protection from special
interests; they did not need more abuse and exploitation.

Taft also favored reauthorization of the federal Clean
Water Act, and he wanted Superfund legislation fixed to add so-called
“brown fields,” which were old industrial sites that could be cleaned
and put back into use as commercial real estate. He supported an energy
policy that would have 25 percent of all U.S. energy coming from
renewable sources by 2025. He pushed natural gas companies to set aside
funds to help low income families pay their heating bills.

As far back as 2003, Taft was urging governors and
Congress to take drastic action to stop the spread of the Asian carp,
the giant jumping fish that now are in the Ohio River near Cincinnati.
He called such invasive species “perhaps the most serious and
potentially destructive threat” to Ohio’s natural ecosystem. His warning
about all the invaders came too true. Since then, Emerald Ash Borers
have appeared and destroyed too much of Ohio’s forestland. And Asian
longhorn beetles are on the march in Clermont County, where the
Department of Natural Resources and Forest Service have drawn battle
lines against the pest. Taft worried about water pollution, too. He said
too many beaches were closed from bacteria and sewage, and he saw the
solution as “not better information about when to close the beach, it’s
not having to close the beach in the first place.”

So Taft is getting a thoughtful reappraisal. He may have
been comfortable at play on the country clubs. But his reputation is
coming back from low ebb.

The big news breaking the Internets is that Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the nation’s leading breast cancer charity, is pulling its grants from Planned Parenthood affiliates. The charity gave about $680,000 last year and $580,000 in 2010, which is mostly used to provide free breast exams for low-income women.

Leaders of the nonprofit Music Hall Revitalization Co.
seemed to have compromised last week when the group proposed a 99-year lease of
Music Hall as part of a $165 million renovation. But the lease included a
clause that would allow the group to acquire the historic building for $1 at
the end of the lease or at the end of a second 99-year lease. The permanent
sale of the building is what held up the initial plan to turn the renovation
over to the nonprofit group, which says its donors will not offer the financial
support without the city turning over ownership. Mayor Mark Mallory told The
Enquirer that the proposal will not be approved. “I don’t care if it’s 99 years, 198 years, 500 years or
1,000 years, the city should always retain ownership,” Mallory said. “That
should never change.”

The
George W. Bush Presidential Library denied a request by a Democratic super PAC
for documents related to Sen. Rob Portman’s work in the George W. Bush
administration. The library says it is not subject to the Freedom of
Information Act and that all are welcome to see the documents in 2014. The
super PAC, American Bridge 21st Century, has been researching GOP candidates as
Mitt Romney moves closer to choosing a running mate.

“When
you look at the roster of V.P. candidates, each of them is significantly
flawed,” American Bridge senior adviser Ty Matsdorf said in a statement. “For
Portman, it is his calamitous record on fiscal issues while working at the Bush
White House. It shouldn’t be a shock that he is going to want to keep that
under wraps for as long as possible, but unfortunately it’s pretty hard to hide
a record as terrible as that.”

Facebook has created a new “find friends nearby” function
that will allow users to see friends and people they don’t know who are at
events or social gatherings. From some Facebook engineer’s comments on the
story:

I built Find Friends Nearby with another engineer for a
hackathon project. While it was originally called ‘Friendshake’, we
settled on ‘Find Friends Nearby’ for launch (the URL was a little bit of
a homage to the previous iteration).

For me, the ideal use case for this product is the one
where when you’re out with a group of people whom you’ve recently met
and want to stay in contact with. Facebook search might be effective, or
sharing your vanity addresses or business cards, but this tool provides
a really easy way to exchange contact information with multiple people
with minimal friction.

The ongoing saga involving Cincinnati
Police Chief James Craig and his nonexistent policing powers will
continue into July, as a hearing scheduled for Thursday has been
continued. Craig's attorneys will argue in front of the Ohio Peace
Officer Training Commission that his prior experience, and
certification in three other states, should exempt him from a state
rule requiring all officers pass a certification exam before earning
police powers. Craig believes he was hired to do things other than
study for an entry-level policing test, and some states would already
have certified him.

A statewide ban on texting while
driving moved through the Ohio House of Representatives yesterday and
is expected to be signed into law by Gov. John Kasich. The law makes
the writing, sending or reading of a text message while driving a
secondary offense, meaning officers may not pull over an adult driver
for the act. Teens, however, under House Bill 99 will be prohibited
from using any electronic device other than GPS and may be pulled
over for it.

Kasich on Tuesday followed through with
the GOP plan to overturn its own controversial election law that was
to go before voters in November. State Republicans and election
officials now say there's no reason for the law to go in front of
voters thanks to the 300,000 signatures gathered by President Obama's
re-election campaign and other opponents, but opponents of the
election law point out that the repeal still reaffirms an election
law change that would end early voting the weekend before an
election. Democrats plan to keep the issue on the ballot.

But people on both sides of the issue
say there's no precedent for a legislative repeal of a bill that also
is the subject of a referendum, so it's unclear how a court might
rule if a legal challenge is filed.

Jennifer Brunner, a former Democratic
secretary of state and a leader in the Fair Elections Ohio campaign
that brought the referendum, said Tuesday that the action taken by
Gov. John Kasich and Legislature doesn't force the removal of the
question from November ballots.

"Since this issue is a case of
first impression for any court, we do not see the statement of the
Secretary of State to be determinative on this issue," Brunner
said in an email. "The issue remains on the ballot."

More drama from Columbus: Republicans
are moving forward with a test program requiring some welfare
recipients to submit to drug testing in order to continue receiving
benefits. Opponents say the process stigmatizes the poor, while the
GOP says it's just a simple process involving poor people paying the
upfront costs for drug tests, being reimbursed if they pass and
living on the streets for six months if they fail.

Northern Kentucky leaders plan to use
the revitalization of Over-the-Rhine as a model for reinvesting in
their urban core. A nonprofit organization has raised $10 million
during the past five years to get started spurring commercial and
residential investment.

Two Kentucky high school students who
were turned away from their senior prom for arriving as a same-sex
couple have argued that if their Catholic high school wants to ban
students based on upholding the church's teachings, such a
ban should include couples who have had premarital sex and kids who
plan to get wasted after the prom.

Apparently viewers of Harry's Law,
which was set in Cincinnati and used a stage-version of Arnold's as
the lawyer gang's regular hangout, are too old to attract advertising
dollars despite their relatively high numbers.

The show ranked very low among viewers
ages 18 to 49, the demographic most advertisers care about. In fact,
its young-adult numbers were beneath those for "Prime Suspect,"
a cop show that NBC canceled earlier this season, and roughly on par
with those of "Off Their Rockers," the Betty White show
about senior citizens pulling pranks on younger people.

"It was a difficult decision,"
an NBC executive said Sunday, quoted by the site Deadline.com.
"Everyone here respects 'Harry's Law' a lot but we were finding
it hard to grow the audience for it. Its audience skewed very old and
it is hard to monetize that."

We don't see much of Bush these days.
He's the president that a lot of people would like to forget, still
so toxic that he's widely considered more likely to hurt than
help the Republican Party by participating in the 2012 campaign.

Bush's speech Tuesday morning was a
rare exception. He spoke in a small, nondescript room to about 200
people about democracy activists, promoting a human rights campaign
that's part of the George W. Bush Presidential Center.

His presence on the national stage is
perhaps best seen in his presence on the small stage at 1777 F
Street. At the end of the affair, Bush and his wife were called back
up to be presented with writings by Czech human rights icon Vaclav
Havel. They posed for pictures as the audience clapped, and when they
were done, Bush glanced around as if unsure what to do next.

He walked back to his seat, but then
quickly walked back onto the stage and behind the lectern. He leaned
forward into the microphone, paused, and said slyly, "Thanks for
coming."

The wife of an Israeli diplomat in India and her driver were injured Monday when the car they were traveling in was bombed, while another bomb was defused outside an Israeli embassy in Tblisi, Georgia. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed Iran, which he called “the greatest exporter of terror in the world.”

In a reaction to economic sanctions pushed by the United States, Iran today stopped exporting oil to six European nations. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the nation would no longer sell oil to Greece, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Portugal. Also, he appeared on TV to announce that an underground bunker complex for uranium enrichment needed to create nuclear energy is now fully operational.

Perhaps sensing they were losing the public perception battle, House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor on Monday agreed to extend the payroll tax cut for another 10 months without getting offsetting reductions elsewhere in the budget. The action is a victory for President Obama, who opposed the GOP’s attempts to force pay cuts for federal workers and require them to contribute more to their pensions.

Even though more than 250 buildings were damaged in the small Clermont County town of Moscow by Friday's tornado and severe weather, Gov. John Kasich so far is standing by his decision not to seek federal aid. Teams from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will begin assessing damages in Northern Kentucky and Indiana today, but Kasich said it's premature to know if FEMA help is needed here. The agency can provide low-interest loans to repair damage not covered by insurance.

Hamilton County commissioners voted in December to sell the Drake Center hospital in Hartwell to the University of Cincinnati, but the transaction still hasn't been completed. Commissioners Chris Monzel and Todd Portune agreed to sell Drake for $15 million, for a cash infusion to cover a property tax rebate to homeowners for one year. The rebate was promised in 1996 to convince county voters to approve a sales-tax increase to build new stadiums for the Reds and the Bengals.

The police chief of a small Northern Kentucky city was arrested Thursday night for allegedly driving while drunk. Wilder Police Chief Anthony Rouse was arrested in nearby Alexandria after police there received a tip about 30 minutes earlier. Sounds like Rouse might have an enemy or two.

Tuesday is Ohio's eagerly awaited primary election, part of the multiple contests going on nationwide that day. But once again, the Buckeye State is viewed as the key battleground that could make or break the campaigns of some Republican presidential hopefuls. A Quinnipiac University poll released today finds Mitt Romney has the momentum. Quinnipiac said 34 percent of likely Republican primary voters prefer Romney, compared to 31 percent for Rick Santorum, a 10-point shift from a Feb. 27 poll that favored Santorum.

In news elsewhere, some Republican Party insiders are comparing the GOP's position this year to the 2005 film, Batman Begins. In that flick, a group of villains believe Gotham City is beyond saving and the only way to fix it is to first destroy it, then let something better rise from the ashes. The Republican Party's contentious presidential primary battle might be the exact type of showdown between its moderate and conservative factions that is needed to let the party recover and prosper in the future, some strategists believe. (So, does that make Rick Santorum the Scarecrow?)

Love him or hate him, Ron Paul is refreshingly candid and free of spin. The Republican presidential wannabe expressed doubt Sunday that radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh was sincere when he apologized for calling a law student a "slut" over her support for President Obama's new policy on insurance coverage of contraceptives. Limbaugh only did it because advertisers were leaving his show, Paul said on Face the Nation. Well, duh.

An Iranian-American convicted in Iran of spying for the CIA will get a new trial. In what's being viewed as an improvement in relations between the two nations, Iran's Supreme Court has overturned the death sentence given to Amir Mirzai Hekmati, stating his earlier trial “was not complete.”

There appears to be little chance that a proposal by the Obama administration to cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 28 percent for all companies, while also eliminating loopholes and deductions, will advance this year. Some politicians are leery of abolishing the deductions in an election year, NPR reports.